


doing the right thing

by estherroberts



Category: Ars Paradoxica (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Abortion, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-20 05:14:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12425763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estherroberts/pseuds/estherroberts
Summary: june's doesn't want to be a widowanda single mother





	doing the right thing

**Author's Note:**

> title refers to the song "doing the right thing" by daughter, which summerwoodsmoke/tanosoka put on her gotdamned june playlist and made me feel things (and thanks to her for beta'ing too!!)

“well, _that’s_ not a poor idea.”

“what isn’t?”

“oh, did i do it again?” vicky smiles apologetically.

june’s only known her about a week, but she’s already used to her new friend’s habit of forgetting to say things aloud. “tell me where your mind went.”

“i was thinking about your… predicament? the kind of thing you’re asking, it’s nightmare fuel. but there are safer ways… i don’t know if there are women in town who could help you, with herbal remedies, and i’ve tried my best to find out, explore all the options, but when you tell them you’re ‘asking for a friend,’ you know, they think you mean that _you’re_ the one who wants…. anyway. i did say i had another idea.”

june finds her fingers creeping toward her abdomen in spite of herself. she can’t raise quentin’s child, she won’t. it’s going to be hard to listen to anything other than the solution she’d planned on when she left polvo. “which is?”

“it’s a bit daft, but…” she sighs. “i’ve always wanted a child. and lord knows i’m not the type to take up with a husband.”

“oh.” the words take a minute to fully sink in. “huh.”

“alice?”

“would you mind, i might… need to think it over?”

“certainly. and… i know it’s hard to trust someone you just met with your own flesh and blood. if there’s anything i can do to make it easier on you, you just let me know alright?”

“yes. thank you.”

* * *

june is pretty sure this isn’t what vicky meant last week when she’d offered to make things easy, but here they are. and june already knows her better than she ever would with just another chat over tea. it’s… kind of incredible.

“oh, god, _alice…”_

she winces at the name, wretched out of the moment. a deep sense of falseness hammers her skull even as she tries to block it out. june’s grip on vicky’s thigh tightens, not enough to hurt her, but enough for her to gasp.

 _oh, june,_ says the judgmental voice that lives inside of her head, _your husband hasn’t even been dead for three weeks._

 _shut up,_ she thinks back at herself, and adjusts so she can run a trail of kisses down vicky’s neck.

* * *

in retrospect, she probably shouldn’t have stayed the night. she should have gone home after and cried herself to sleep again. but the morning light is streaming in through the crack in vicky’s curtains, and june hasn’t moved yet.

she looks over at vicky, hair tousled and sleeping peacefully, and feels her heart beating a little faster. dear god.

_don’t get attached, june._

she rolls onto to her side, away from vicky, resting a hand on her stomach again. if she find a woman who knows the right herbs, would she even be able to go through with it? this child is the only thing she has left of quentin. the only thing _the world_ has left of him.

june can’t spend a lifetime looking at the reminder of what she did to her husband. but she might be able to handle nine months of carrying it.


End file.
